My Bloody Valentine 2
by writingrose2008
Summary: Takes place a year after the last murders in Harmony. This time, the story is centered on a small mining community called Pleasantville and is told from the point of view of a young woman named Laura Blaire.
1. Chapter 1

Synopsis: Takes place a year after the last murders in Harmony. This time, the story is centered on a small mining community called Pleasantville and is told from the point of view of a young woman named Laura Blaire. What happens when the mysterious Tom Hanniger mysteriously shows up and a new string of murders begin? Read on to find out.

Disclaimer: Much to my dismay… I do not own My Bloody Valentine or its sexy star Jensen Ackles. MBV is property of Lionsgate. Jensen… well… guess he's still up for grabs ;D

Now that all of that nonsense is out of the way…

Chapter 1:

Nightmare in Tunnel 5

Black was everywhere. It was as if the color had engulfed me and I was now resting at the pit of its stomach, waiting to be devoured. I couldn't make out any aspect of my surroundings. The darkness was as pure as having my eyes closed. I could feel some sort of jagged edge pushing into the skin of my back like glass. I tried to breath, but could only manage a few strangling gasps of something that left a bad taste in my mouth. I wasn't sure what it was, just that it felt heavy inside my lungs made the urge to cough nearly uncontrollable.

Nearly uncontrollable… but not impossible. Some instinct hidden deep within my mind forced me to suppress the sound I desperately wanted to make. My muscles tensed and tightened like the same instinct was ordering me to stay deathly still. None of the instincts or thoughts in my mind made any sense to me at that moment. I didn't understand my body's determination to remain in a place that I could not even seem to breathe in.

It also occurred to me in that same instant that I had no idea where I was. I didn't know what I was doing in the darkness or what my body knew that I did not, but I was alone. I managed, after assessing the situation that far, to unfreeze my body enough for it to begin to tremor. A rush of panic pulsed through the back surrounding me. There was not a word in my psychological vocabulary to describe my feelings. Fear didn't even begin to cover it.

Suddenly, a soft noise filled that air around my ears. I knew immediately that I had not made the sound… my mouth was still frozen with the ice of the panic that generated from my body's core. The tremors persisted as my mind raced to grasp this new sensory aspect of reality. I was not alone, as I had previously thought. There was something else in the darkness… something… breathing… and becoming closer with every sound that passed into my ears.

Seconds later, there was also a light. It was far away at first, but as the moments elapsed it grew into a distinct beam. I began to fight the instinct that froze me in place more fervently. At length, I managed to take a small step forward and then extend the overly tense muscles of my neck in the direction of the light to get a better look at it and its source.

There was someone else in the black, I could see that clearly now. A human figure dressed from head to toe in a black miners' uniform, complete with an air mask that covered the lower half of their face. I knew the attire well, having grown up in a community in if miners. Yet, something about seeing attire now, in my current state of mind, sent more tremors through my already shaking body. My mind again flashed quickly, attempting to put the current events into a coherent sequence that I could understand. It couldn't be....

My eyes flashed again to the miner figure, examining it entirely this time. That was when a scream at last escaped from my frozen lips. The clenched back hands of the miner held a pickaxe. The head of the blade gleamed brilliant red in the presence of the light atop the helmet. It was him. The murderer. The one that had drenched Harmony's mines in blood last Valentine's Day. There was no mistaking him now with the bloody weapon in his hands.

No sooner had the sound escaped me, I found myself illuminated by the light of the miner's helmet. I was marked now. Doomed. It was as if every ounce of his energy was now directed at me. His steps, quick and deliberate, were now coming toward at me. The grip on his pickaxe, strong and swift, tightened in anticipation of the deadly swing it was about the deliver. He was now a predator and I was as helpless as a deer in a meadow.

I tried to unlock my body, to at the very least run instead of standing stationary staring at my murder. But my efforts were futile, my body had locked itself to that one place as if it insisted on dying there… in that exact place. After a few frantic seconds, I stopped trying. Death was inevitable either way now that he had seen my face. If I ran, he would simply chase after me until he killed me. Any movement now would be utterly useless. The realization of death washed over me and drained the blood from my face. I could feel myself becoming colder and my trembling quicken.

My eyes blinked for their last worldly time. A single drop of the realization flowed down my pale, lifeless cheek. I then moved my eyes upward and stared into the miners mask and the figure that was now mere feet from me. Through the glass of the mask, I could see a pair of hazel eyes gazing back at me. It was the only thing I could see of the man inside the uniform… my true killer.

Every part of my remaining consciousness became consumed by the light brown iris' that held just a slight hint of green in their midst. The pickaxe began to move above the mask and the rest of the miner's body. For a moment, I caught a glimpse of blood red in the glass where the hazel eyes had me fixed. But it gave away to the brown and hint of green again… the last colors I would ever see on earth.

The axe lingered in its downward point in the air above our bodies a moment. It couldn't have lasted more than an instant, but in my final moments it seemed like an eternity. I took a last gasping breath of the dirty, thick air around me and tensed my body in preparation of the blow. As the axe passed back by the miner's eyes, everything went black. I saw nothing after that. Not the hazel eyes or the silver and bloody crimson of the pickaxe in its decent into my chest. A loud, persistent beeping noise crept into my ears. It consumed everything as the sound became louder and echoed in every part of my mind.

*This is my first attempt at horror. Sorry that its sort and I apologize if it sucks. I really wanted to try my hand at this. Reviews/constructive criticisms are encouraged and welcome. Feedback will determine whether or not this is continued and how fast updates come. I'm serious. Flamers have literally ruined my muse for my other fics on here.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I still do not own MBV….or Jensen. And since the last time I've posted, he's also not available anymore…all I own is this plot. **

**Thanks to all you awesome reviewers for making this my most review fic on this site and a special thanks to the amazing americanidolfreak (who just so happens to be my unbiological sister) for typing it for me. Cookie to you all 3**

Chapter 2:

The Mysterious Stranger

The alarm clock's loud beeping reverberated in my ears, causing my body to jar upward. I sat still, allowing my breath to catch and become even before turning toward the source of the infernal noise. Then, I stretched my hand out to the switch that would silence it. As I turned off the beeping, my sleepy eyes caught a glimpse of the large, glowing red numbers on the clock. The time itself seemed to be mocking me; 5:00 A.M.

I sighed deeply in contempt for the early hour before flipping on the bed lamp that sat beside the alarm clock atop my nightstand. My newly opened eyes blinked several times to begin adjusting to the new light. They moved about the room, scanning their surrounding between the spouts of black. It was if they were making sure of where I was after a night of sleep and dreaming of being somewhere else.

After a few more moments of this, I looked down at my bed at the disarray of sheets. They were twisted and in wrinkled mounds as a testament to my tossing and turning while I slept. I looked across the lime green sheets until I noticed a strange square shape in the sheets. My eyes gazed at it curiously for moment, wondering what had found its way into my messy excuse for a bed.

I lifted the sheet beside the shape and finally gaze at its source; a bright red, three-ring binder. I shook my head and sighed again as I took the binder gently in my hands. Inside that binder was years of my life materialized onto sheets of paper and ink. The contents confined in those rings was my future in a way few people could imagine. Within that bright red square was a draft of my required dissertation to earn my doctorate in psychology.

A lot of things suddenly made sense to me. I now remembered falling asleep while reading and editing my dissertation. Shaky, yet vivid memories of my nightmare were also forming in my mind. I laughed nervously to myself. Could there be a more suiting definition of the word "obsessed" than me? I was even dreaming of my dissertation subject. This certainly had to cease. I had to find better before-bed reading material.

After making a mental note to visit the bookstore and buy a book that didn't involve psycho-analyzing murders, I finally forced myself out of bed. My feet finally made contact with the cold, hardwood floor and I began to untwist the sheets on my bed. After some smoothing, my bed was made and I began to slowly become more awake as I went about the rest of my morning routine. My day was beginning before most people even thought of waking up.

I took a quick shower, brushed my teeth, got dressed into my work uniform before again checking the clock in my bedroom. The sighed of the time made me groan in exasperation. I hissed the word, "Damnit," under my breath to the air around me. I was five minutes behind my usual schedule. If I didn't hurry, I was going to be late. The day was already working against me.

I hurried out of the bedroom and swiped my keys off of their hook before nearly sprinting out the door. My car, covered in a haze of dew, was waiting for me dutifully. It was a 1998 Mercury Sable, my first car and 12 years old. Thought it was about half of my age, it was mine and all I could afford until my dissertation was finished. Once I was an actual psychiatrist, I was determined to own a new Mercedes Benz sports car for the rest of my life. That would certainly outdo all of the elderly widowers and their BMW's that slide past me everyday in this town, even if I wasn't going to stick around to see it.

The still-glowing street lights illuminated the road that led into the small, two-stoplight town of Pleasantville. It was primarily home to retired miners and their children who had no aspirations to leave. I, however, was not one of those people. In fact, just as soon as my dissertation was finished and I earned my doctorate, I planned to move as far away from Pleasantville as the continent United States would allow. I was determined not to let my hometown define me and who I was. I was going to do that all on my own.

When I pulled into Freddy's Diner, I stopped long enough to catch a glimpse of clock glowing green on my dashboard. I realized that Freddy and Sandra were probably wondering if I was dead. My two co-workers knew that I was unfailingly early on the days I had to work, except, of course, for that seemingly unimportant day. Being late was one of my biggest pet peeves and it was exactly what I was going to be if I didn't hurry. My speed increased as I got out of the car and made a beeline for the diner.

"Hey, I actually beat you here today," Sandra said jokingly when I passed her on the register to clock in.

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it," I retorted, taking my time sheet from the register's printer. "I would have been here earlier if I hadn't been having another damn nightmare."

"Again?" Freddy asked from his place in the kitchen behind us. "Isn't that some kind of psychological thing you should have learned about."

"Probably," I muttered.

"I think it means you need to get laid," Sandra interjected.

"What?!" I asked. It didn't surprise me that Sandra was suggesting sex as a solution to a problem, but the fact she proposed it as a psychological cure was new to me. "Reducing nightmares have nothing to do with getting laid."

"That's what you think," Freddy put his two cents in again.

"It works for me," Sandra began, "I go over to my boyfriends house, get me some, and I don't dream that night."

"Yeah…now there's something to study," Freddy said, "You should do your big, psychological paper on that instead of this miner freak."

"No thanks," I replied. "Between a homicidal miner and analyzing Sandra's sex life, I think I'll take my chances with the miner."

The conversation continued for the next half hour. It was always the same; Sandra talking about all she had done the night before, Freddy giving the guys perspective on whatever she was talking about, along for being a psychology major. There was no use in trying to explain to them that therapy and medicine did actually help people or, despite what Sandra said, everyone dreamed every night but just didn't remember it. I just tried to laugh it off and think to myself someday I would be off making more money and they would still be at the diner, talking about sex.

Thirty minutes later, Freddy's Diner was open for business. The usual retired, elderly men filled in one by one. It wasn't long before they took up the entire left side of the diner, sitting next to each other and talking about politics, old cars, or whatever else came into their minds. Most of them were nice and tipped fairly well, but there were a few who liked nothing more than to stare at a waitress's ass as they walked away and leave nothing at the table when they left hours later. It was a typical day in the diner for the first few hours…

I had recognized every face that had walked into to diner so far that day until a stranger walked in about 8:30. I did a double take when I first saw him, expecting him to either disappeared or be somebody I knew that had just gotten a haircut or something. As it turned out, he was neither. He was someone new, probably just passing through on his way somewhere like most strangers that came in. Not many people had the will or sanity to stay in Pleasantville very long.

I walked back up to counter to put an order in and met Sandra as I was about to walk off. Before she started, I knew what she was going to say.

"Hey, who's they guy that just sat down?" she asked.

"Dunno," I replied. "I've never seen him before, he must be passing through."

"Well, did you look at him?" she asked. "He's gorgeous….those big arms. I wouldn't care where he's headed, I'd go right along with him."

"You! You have a boyfriend, remember?" I interrupted.

"Yeah, I know," she responded. "Which is why you should go wait on him."

"What! He's on your side."

"I know, but you should do it anyway."

"Why?"

"Just go do it!" Sandra insisted, walking away before I could argue with her.

I didn't have time to battle it out with her anyway. I sighed and walked away from the counter to approach the stranger. Usually, when Sandra called a man attractive, I disagreed…but this time we were in perfect agreement. The man was good looking. He was bent down over a newspaper, but I could make out enough to tell he was attractive. His dark, brown hair was short and slightly spiked in the front. His face was full with distinct features that made it unique from every other face I had ever seen. Though I couldn't make out the color of his eyes yet, I was sure they were something to see.

I had to divert my gaze as he heard me coming and put his paper aside and looked at me. I tried not to blush, but I could feel the heat in my cheeks rising and knew I had. His attention on me made me self-conscious. At that moment I would have given almost anything to not be wearing a uniform and taking his order…but I was. I tried to smile and not give away the fact I had been staring at him.

"Good morning, sir." I tried to sound casual.

"Good morning," he responded. He looked up at me and smiled slightly and I could feel the heat rushing toward my cheeks.

"Can I start you with a cup of coffee?" I recovered after a few seconds.

"Please," he answered shortly.

"I'll be right back," I said quickly before turning around and walking the few steps to the coffee pot and brining back a cup to the stranger's table.

It was as I turned the coffee cup next to him and began to pour the black liquid into it that I noticed his eyes. I hadn't had the chance before, but while he was watching me I managed to sneak a few glances. His eyes were a mix of green and brown…a hazel that seemed oddly familiar to me, though I couldn't place them.

"Thank you," the stranger's words brought me out of my train of thought.

"You're welcome," I said. And for a second I was going to keep my mouth shut, leave it at that and take his order. But something stopped me and made me want to talk. Maybe it was just my nosy side…maybe it was the psychologist in me….or maybe it had something to do with the fact that by then, I had stared intently at his left hand for several seconds and saw no wedding band. Either way, I couldn't stop myself. "Say…I haven't seen you in here before. You just passin' through?"

"Well, actually, I'm not sure yet," he replied. "Right now, I'm kinda just wandering around."

I nodded. "Oh…well, in that case, welcome to Pleasantville, potential neighbor. I'm Laura, Laura Blair."

I had no idea why I had just introduced myself or why I was so intent on making an idiot of myself in front of him. But for some reason, he didn't seem to mind. He smiled again before he spoke.

"Thanks…um…I'm Tom Hanniger."

*MBV*MBV*MBV*MBV*MBV*MBV*


	3. Chapter 3

Well, summer had begun for me and it is time once again to post another chapter. I must also remind you that I do not own anything except my character(Laura) and the plot. My Bloody Valentine is the property of LionsGate. Unfortunately for us all, Jensen Ackles is now the property of Danielle Harris.

So, without further ado or grumbling…

Chapter 3:

The Bet

Tom Hannigar wasn't lying that morning at the diner. He didn't just disappear like most of the new people I saw at work. The next morning he was back the same as the day before, newspaper in hand. He was there the morning after that… and the morning after that… and every other morning without fail for two weeks. He was becoming just as predictable as most of the 70 year old retired miners who came in at the same time and ordered the same thing for years on end. I would have been lying if I had said I didn't appreciate the routine of pouring his coffee and watching him looking at me with his hazel eyes every day.

Of course, the new highlight of my day also gave Sandra a new hobby. She liked to call it 'trying-to-get-Laura-laid', I however, preferred to call it 'embarrassing-Laura-in-front-of-the-only-single-male-under-the-age-of-50-that-came-into-the-diner.' No matter what it was called, it involved Sandra looking my way every time Tom came in the door… long enough to notice me gazing a second too long in his direction. '_Hey, your boyfriend is here_,' she'd always say and not so low as to keep it just turned to our ears. '_Shut up, Sandra,_' I'd reply. '_You should ask him what else you could do for him… besides bringing him breakfast. Better yet, tell him you make a mean breakfast in bed, if you catch my drift_.' I did my best to ignore her, but once you cut out all the perverted stuff what Sandra said had a ring of truth to it. I did want to know Tom Hannigar in more ways than bringing him breakfast to his table every morning (just not in all the ways Sandra talked about… not yet.)

Everyone's morning routine was shaken up the following Wednesday when a tour bus of people on their way to Virginia stopped at Freddy's. I was supposed to be off that day, but as soon as Sandra and Freddy caught a glimpse of the bus they were on the phone calling me to get my ass up to the diner to help them. There was no time for my pre-work shower. I quietly thanked God for the long, hot bath I had taken the night before to clear my head and think about my dissertation, though it wasn't quite the same. There was no time for my morning coffee which had the potential to cause problems. There was barely enough time to get dressed and get out the door that morning.

When I did get to the diner, I had the strange sensation I was walking onto a battle field. All of the tables in the place were full. I had never seen the place so occupied in all my years of working there. Sandra said it came pretty close after the graduation ceremony let out, but I never worked at the diner that day because I had to attend the ceremony. I was still a teacher at that time of the year. But now, I was right in the middle of the storm of people. All we could hope for was that they wouldn't want anything too complicated.

One by one, Sandra and I took on the tables full of people. Despite the chaos, it was a relatively smooth process. It was just never ending. The few people that finished first went back to the bus to sit, but the tables didn't stay vacant long. By then, the usual customers were up and ready for their breakfast. For the first time ever, I got to wait on Tom Hannigar without hearing Sandra's unwelcome input. It would have been nice… if I had actually gotten to speak to him. I had to move on quickly and barely squeezed in a '_Good Morning' _to him. And when he replied with only half of his usual smile. Part of me wondered if he missed our morning exchange as much as I did. Somehow, I doubted it… but I did have reason to believe that he had noticed.

A little while later, Sandra and I had all the tables waited on. We had concurred the battlefield of hungry people and by then were completely exhausted. Luckily for me, it meant I got to go home and rest. Unluckily for Sandra, it meant she had to suck it up and stay on her feet all day until her work was done and nightshift came in to relieve her and Freddy. I was just about to grab my keys and make my way to the door as fast as my sore legs could carry me when Sandra came up behind me.

"Hey, your boyfriend is still here," she commented slyly.

"Shut up, Sandra," I returned with mock hatred, but there were some real bits of frustration in my tone as well.

"Hey, you're off now."

"And? What's that have to do with anything?"

"You should go talk to him."

"And what? Tell him I'm dirty and see if he has a shower I can use?"

"No, don't say that. Then he'll think you're a whore." I rolled my eyes. Why was it that when I made a joke, Sandra took it seriously? Why was he the only one allowed to make perverted jokes at the expense of my love life?

"Then what did you think I should say?" I asked.

"Are you actually going to go over there and sit with him?"

"NO!… maybe… I dunno…"

"What's the matter? Are you scared?" She asked mockingly.

"Terrified," I replied sarcastically. "He could be some kind of psycho, you know."

"Well, isn't that kinda your job?"

"Not yet, it isn't."

"Then you should go practice."

"On him? No."

"Yes, on him."

"No."

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Why not?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"If he's not a psycho, he'll think I'm one if I go sit down beside him."

"No he won't. He likes you."

"No, he doesn't."

"Yea, he does."

"You're insane!"

"Wanna bet?"

"What?"

"I bet if you go over and ask to sit with him, he'll say yes… and you'll end up talking."

I thought about it for a second. In a week of two, Tom Hannigar would probably just get tired of Pleasantville and leave town anyway. It wasn't like flirting with a local boy who would stick around forever as a constant reminder that he had rejected you. There wasn't anything like that to loose in this situation. He was sitting out in the dining room at a table by himself, wearing the dark green button-up shirt that made the green in hims eyes come out over his gray t-shirt… my favorite thing he had worn into the diner in the two week since I seen him. I mentally cursed and let out a heavy sigh.

"How much?" I asked after my few moment of silent contemplation.

"Ten bucks."

"I'll take that bet," I agreed, trying to sound nonchalant about the whole thing while my head felt like it was going to explode. "I could use ten bucks."

"So could I," Sandra countered. I rolled my eyes at her as if to say, 'you're not the one who's gonna get it' before I grabbed my stuff and started walking in his general direction.

Tom didn't look up at me until I was nearly at his table. He had been completely engrossed in his newspaper until my footsteps got close enough to the point my footsteps could be coming to no other destination but to him. He looked up at me, smiling his usual smile that made me suddenly conscious of everything I did. If I hadn't already been too late… if there had been any chance that it would not have been blatantly obvious what I was doing, I would have probably turned around. I tried to stay calm and remind myself there was nothing to loose but for some reason, when he was looking at me, that mental statement didn't seem altogether true.

"Good morning… again," I said, deciding to speak before I got any father into psyching myself out.

"Good morning," Tom returned. He said it just like usual, not sounding like I had freaked him out at all. I took that as a good sign.

"Um… do you mind if I sit down here for a minute? The diner's kinda full and it's been a long morning…"

"No, I don't mind."

"Thanks," I said quietly as I took a seat across from him. I was seated, but Sandra hadn't won the bet yet. It was still entirely possible he had let me sit down just to be nice, that he didn't like me at all and was only being a gentlemen because after all, I was the one who brought him his breakfast almost every morning.

"You're welcome…" he paused for a second after that, like he wanted to keep talking but had no earthly idea where to start. "It… has been crazy in here today."

"Yea," I responded, trying to gently encourage him to keep the conversation. Where it went didn't matter to me. "So much for my day off."

"Oh… yea, that dose suck. Did you have plans?"

"Not really. Just sitting around the house, maybe working on my dissertation," I answered, scolding myself for already bringing my other line of work into the conversation. "I'm working toward my PhD in Psychology."

"Really? That's interesting." Tom replied. Not in the way that people did when they thought I was weird or the they had no idea what I was talking about. His response was genuine, like he was actually interested in what I was doing.

"Yea, it really is," I agreed before taking another glance into his hazel eyes. "So… what about you, Tom Hannigar? What kind of interesting things are you up to?"

"Nothing really," he looked down at his empty coffee cup while I spoke. "My dad… he owned a coal mine back where I used to live. I guess everyone just always thought I'd just take over the family business."

"And… you don't want to?"

"No. I don't know exactly what I want… but not that."

I nodded. He would never know just how much I could relate to what he was saying.

"That… sounds familiar," I said softly. "I'm sure you'll figure out what you want soon. Take it from experience, once you break away from what everyone else expects from you… what you want isn't far behind."

Our eyes met and there was a few seconds of silence before anything else was said. The conversation continued for a while longer, both of us just talking like it was a natural thing for us to do.

Before I left, I made sure Tom wasn't looking and pulled out a ten dollar bill from my pocket. I put it on the table where I was sure Sandra would find it. She deserved it. She had been right. Tom and I had talked….and I did really like him.


	4. Chapter 4

Well, here it is yet another chapter. After this one and the next one, I promise things will pick up and the plot will get a bit more... interesting. By interesting, I mean... well, I don't want to give too much away, so let's just leave it at that. I hope you are enjoying the story so far and please review if you have any comments or anything. Hearing form the readers is always greatly appreciated.

Anyway, I guess I should now remind you that I own nothing and give you...

Chapter 4:

Standstills and Interruptions

"So are you gonna go sit with your boyfriend again?" Sandra asked for the forth day in a row as I grabbed myself a quick bite to eat and prepared to go sit down for my break.

"For the last time, Tom is not my boyfriend," I replied all too defensively.

"Is too."

"Is not."

"Is too!"

"Sandra, I have a hot plate of bacon and eggs and I'm not afraid to use it." I threatened. I then took a few steps away from the counter and with my food toward the usual table where Tom was sitting alone with his newspaper.

"Fine. Whatever." Sandra retorted as I continued to walk away from her. "He's still your boyfriend."

Even though I rolled my eyes instinctively at her comment, I couldn't help but smile to myself. What I said was true, Tom Hannigar wasn't my boyfriend... not yet. I emphasized the last two words in my head. If had cared to be honest with myself, I would have realized how badly I wanted him to ask me out… and how everyday I went to sit with him at his table and quietly waited for something to happen. It was a bit like working at the diner, spending the entire workweek anxiously waiting for Tuesdays when paychecks would be waiting for us at the end of our shift.

But it had been almost a week since the first time Tom and I had started talking thanks to mine and Sandra's bet, which he didn't need to know about. He and I still just talked naturally, about whatever happened to be on our minds. There was no rush, no agenda on either of our parts. I appreciated how things had not gotten awkward between us, but I was still waiting for our early morning conversations to turn more serious. I thought about the reasons why nothing had happened yet. Maybe Tom was shy, he certainly seemed to give off that kind of vibe. Maybe he was shy he didn't think I like him. Or maybe… he just didn't like me.

Whatever the reason, Tom and I remained at a standstill. I tried not to over think it, but part of me couldn't help but keep it in the back of my mind as me and my breakfast made our way to his table. As usual, he didn't look up at me until I got almost the whole way to where he was. Then, like a black sheet of canvas secretly concealing a work of art, the newspaper was put aside to reveal his eyes and I couldn't help but smile when he looked at me.

"Good morning, Tom," I greeted him ,not as hesitantly as I once had.

"Good morning, Laura," Tom replied. Something about him saying my name made me feel even more self-conscious but also like something special at the same time.

I took my usual seat opposite him at his table and watched as he took a sip of his coffee. We were both quiet for a few minutes but not the same awkward silence that had filled the air in the past. I took a few bites of my breakfast and looked out the window, desperate to find something… anything to start off the conversation.

"It's going to be a pretty day," I commented absentmindedly.

"Yea, it's already pretty warm outside," he agreed. I cast him a look of slight envy.

"Well, at least I'll have a few hours of heat left to enjoy when I get off, right?"

Tom smiled and was about to reply when I happened to take another look outside. I saw a familiar old, white Cadillac pull up to the diner and smiled. An old woman who was even more familiar emerged slowly out of the vehicle. Her long, white hair was done up neatly in a bun and her Reebok tennis shoes were just as white as the car she drove. Her name was Miss Maryann.

Miss Maryann wasn't one of our regular customers. She rarely ever came to the diner. I knew her so well because she was my neighbor. Ever since I was little and living in the same house as I still did only with my parents there, Miss Maryann had been there in the house next to mine. But the poor old woman had rarely gotten out of her house anymore since her husband passed away a few years ago. Even I rarely seen her since then.

No sooner had Miss Maryann walked in, it hit me. She knew my old Mercury that was parked outside, She knew I was at work and she would be looking to see me. I, very conveniently, was sitting at a table with sitting with an extremely handsome guy about my own age. The lines my nice old neighbor would draw weren't had to guess. I looked at Tom and mentally cursed.

By the time my thought caught up with what was going on, it was too late to do anything about it. Miss Maryann was already inside the diner. I could feel her old eyes probing the place for me. All I could hope was that she would be in too big of a hurry to come over to the table. It was a long shot and I knew it, but I still tried to hope against the odds for a please-don't-embarrass-me-today pass.

Of course, my luck wasn't that good… not that day. As soon as Miss Maryann caught a glimpse of me sitting down, she started walking toward the table. I let out a soft sigh. Tom had caught on somewhat to what was happening at that point as well. He kept quiet and just looked with his hazel eyes back and forth from me to the old lady.

"Hello, Laura," she started when she got closer to the table.

"Hello, Miss Maryann," I replied, trying to keep my tone polite. "How are you today?"

"Aw, I can't complain too bad," my neighbor returned. Then, against all my hoping and wishing, she turned her southerner scrutinizing gaze to Tom. "And… who's this young man?"

"I'm Tom Hannigar," he answered for himself. I wasn't sure who was more surprised at the fact he had spoken up.

"I'm Miss Maryann. I've lived next to Laura here since she was just a wee girl." The lady extended her hand in Tom's direction and after a second of hesitation, he took her hand and shook it.

"It's nice to meet you," He replied politely, though I could sense my neighbor was making him feel slightly uncomfortable.

"It's nice to meet you too, Tom Hannigar," Miss Maryann said, still eyeing him curiously. "You have a real nice girl there. You'd best be good to her."

The old lady said good-bye to me and then walked off without saying another word to Tom. To say I was embarrassed would have been the understatement of the year. But on the other hand, there was no better instance that could describe Pleasantville. It was a town where everybody knew, or at least thought they knew, everyone else's business. This need was great sometimes (like if you were ever broke down in a ditch on Easter Sunday, like I was once.) There was never a shortage of people to help people that needed it. But then, there were times (like when you were sitting having breakfast with a nice guy who just happened to not be your boyfriend like I had been doing) when you wished people would just mind their own business and leave you… not to mention him… alone.

"I'm really sorry about that, Tom," I said after a few seconds, casting him a sympathetic, sorry-you-had-to-endure-that look.

"It's okay… really," he replied. I couldn't judge at that moment whether or not he truly didn't mind my neighbor had just assumed we were together or of was just being a gentlemen and hiding how much it had bothered him.

"That's a small town for ya, I guess. Everyone just jumps to their own conclusions about everything."

"Yea, I know how that is. I grew up in a town almost exactly like this one."

"So… you're not mentally scared for life or anything?" I asked playfully.

"No, no more than I was before," Tom answered, a hint of laughter in his voice. Somehow, he had already succeeded in making me feel more at ease.

"Well, that's good to know. So… what were we talking about before we were so nosily interrupted?" I changed the subject in hopes the conversation would return to its normal, casual feel.

"The weather. You said you'd still have a few more hours of the heat after you got off of work."

"Oh yea, that's right. Sandra and I are taking her little girl to the pool after work this afternoon. So, I will get to enjoy some of the heat."

"That sounds like fun," Tom smiled at me yet again.

I would like to blame that action for my next bought of stupidity. But as much as I would like to be able to plead insanity by dazzling smile, I couldn't blame him entirely. The idea came into my own head and out of my big mouth before I could begin to again think rationally.

"You...wouldn't want to come, would you?"

'_Stupid…. Stupid. Stupid!' _was the next stream of thoughts to pop into my head. It was one of the dumbest things I had ever done, right up there with the time in junior high when I decided short hair would look good on me for a change. I had spent months paying off that error in judgment, and I was sure there would be even worse consequences to this one. Most of me expected Tom not to answer… or to call me a weirdo and walk away, but again I was surprised. He seemed to either be either oblivious or immune to my relationship incompetence. Whichever it was, I was grateful for it.

"Well… I can't today…."

"Have big plans for later on?"

"Kind of," Tom began. "I'm actually looking for a house later on today."

"You're looking for a house?" I looked at him, my face probably looking like a little kid at the circus. There was no use in denying how happy I was to hear something that meant he was staying in Pleasantville long-term. "So you're planning on staying?"

"Yea… I like it here."

"I'm glad Pleasantville has grown on you."

"Yea… a lot of things here have grown on me here."

I smiled again and our eyes met for a few seconds until I caught a glance at my watch. Just like Cinderella at midnight, my time was up. I had to go back to taking orders and cleaning tables until my shift ended. There was also no more time for me to make a fool of myself, which was the only good thing about my break being over. I told Tom good-bye until tomorrow and headed back up to my spot at the counter where a smirking Sandra was faithfully waiting to bust my chops.

"Not your boyfriend, huh?"

"Shut up, Sandra."


	5. Chapter 5

So… No, I am not dead. No, I have not forgotten about all of you awesome people who read the story… and no I do not own My Bloody Valentine or Jensen Ackles.

I am, however, excited to give you a new chapter and also to give a special thanks to americanidolfreak for typing this chapter (and the next one, which should be up very soon J She is an awesome friend/unbiological sister if I do say so myself… and I do)

And now *drumb roll* for those of you out there still reading…

Chapter 5:

The Cabin

After what seemed like days but was only really about four hours, Sandra and I were in our bathing suits at the county pool. Sandra's boyfriend Danny was entertaining her daughter in the water while her and I lounged in the chair next to it and soaked up the sun. It was nice because we could girl talk while working on our tans without much interruption. Of course, the conversation eventually turned to me, which automatically meant more of Sandra taunting me about Tom.

"Next time, you should invite your boyfriend, Laura," she said after a while of sunbathing in peace. "I'll bet he's a sight to see in swim trunks."

"Sandra, do I need to constantly remind you that you have Danny?" I countered.

"Hey, it'd be for you, not for me…I'd just sneak a peak in his general direction every once in a while," Sandra grinned slyly.

"Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I don't think Tom will be joining us at the pool anytime soon."

"Why not? Did you two have a fight?"

"No…I…um…sort of invited him to come today. He said no."

"You, whore! You invited him today and didn't tell me 'til now? What did he say? Why did he say he wouldn't come?"

"He said he was busy today…house hunting."

"House hunting…" Sandra's tone repeating it made it sound dirty. "So he'll have a bed of his own soon…kinky."

I sighed. "There's nothing 'kinky' about it…and I'm sure he's looking for more than a bedroom."

"But there's something kinky about him deciding to stay in Pleasantville."

"Enlighten me."

"Think about it, Laura, to us, this place is home…that's half the reason you're still here, right? And no one moves or decides to stay here in a mining town without even its own Wal-Mart, with no jobs except at the bank, the hospital, the school, or the mines unless he has something kinky on his mind…with someone here."

"Sandra, don't hurt yourself jumping to conclusions over there," I scoffed. "Tom told me he was from a small town. That's why he's staying; he feels at home…it doesn't have anything to do with me."

"Oh yeah? He left the small town he came from, didn't he? There has to be something else keeping him here."

"Maybe…" I finally granted, "But it isn't me."

There was peace for a while after that. Both of us pretty much knew we were fighting a losing battle. I wasn't about to change her mind and she wasn't about to change mine. I laid my back down in the chair and relaxed. If it had not been for the kids in the pool during those moments of silence, I could have probably heard the sun sizzling my skin. My eyes shut after a few moments and I began to try and clear my mind.

"Hey, Laura?" Sandra's voice interrupted the unwinding of my thoughts.

"Hmm?" I replied, not bothering to open my eyes.

"What about your folks old cabin, out in the woods on the edge of town?" she asked abruptly.

I opened my eyes and cast a strange look in her general direction. "What about it?"

"Does anybody live there now?"

"Nope. Not that anyone could live there now…it's old and needs more work than anybody could afford to have done to it."

"How about your boyfriend?"

"What? What does Tom-who's _not_ my boyfriend, by the way-have to do with my parent's cabin?"

"You could offer it to him, dummy."

"What makes you think he'd want to live there?"

"I don't know…he might. You should ask him. With those big arms of his, I'll bet he could up that old cabin. He could do that for rent, you know? For a while."

"That seems kind of messy," I commented reluctantly. "I don't think Tom would want to do that."

"You could ask him."

"I don't think so."

"You should anyway."

I sighed. My body lay back in the lounge chair. Maybe, Sandra was right. After all, it had been her that had first encouraged me to talk to Tom. It was slowly becoming obvious to me that my friend did know more about relationships than I did, especially with her and Danny being engaged. No matter how much she disguised it under her little perverted puns, I also knew she was trying in her own little dirty ways, to help me be happy.

By the next day, I had once again decided to take a gamble on Sandra's advice. I figured, like she had said, there was no harm in just offering the old place to him. The time came for my break and I once again went and sat with Tom at his table. We exchanged smiled momentarily before the conversation started.

"Good morning, Tom," I greeted him brightly.

"Good morning, Laura," he returned.

I paused for a second, looking into his hazel eyes before I began the conversation I had in mind.

"So…how did your house hunting go yesterday?"

"Okay. More expensive than I thought."

"I heard that. But keep looking, you'll find something sooner or later you can afford."

"Yeah, I'm still on the hunt. I'm not giving up yet."

"And if you don't find what you're looking for…" I began, still inwardly cringing somewhat at the thought of what I was about to say, "I have a little place you might be interested in."

"You do?" Tom asked in an interested tone of voice.

"Well, it's not a house, per say. It's a cabin on the edge of town. My parents called it their getaway spot. Since they passed away, I haven't had the heart to sell it. But if you're interested, I could rent it to you."

"Are you sure, Laura? It sounds like a pretty important place to you. I don't want to intrude…"

"No, no, you wouldn't be intruding. I think they would be glad to know it had some use. It's been pretty much abandoned these past few years."

"I guess, if you're sure," Tom answered, an intense look in his eyes. "I could take a look at the cabin sometime."

"Okay." I smiled. "But I should warn you, it needs a lot of work done to it. If you do decide to move in, I'd be willing to exchange fixing it up for rent."

"I could do that," he said, his hazel eyes look as though he was in deep thought. "When can I see the place?"

"I'm off tomorrow," I replied. "We could meet up here in the morning and you could follow me out there."

"Sounds good. Breakfast first, then I'll follow you out to the cabin."

"Okay, deal. I'll see you then."

By then, my watch was once again telling me that my time talking to Tom was almost over. We said our goodbyes and I headed back up to the front where I belonged. And, as usual, Sandra was ready to interrogate me about my break. She seemed pleased with the fact Tom was going to look at the cabin the next day. Despite me insisting that nothing had been decided, she seemed sure he would end up moving in.

For reasons that I could not entirely explain, I was way more excited than I should have been when I woke up the next day. By all accounts, I should have been overwhelmed and upset about going up to my parents place. I had hardly stepped a foot up there since they passed away. I should have been about to burst into tears, been an emotional wreck…and in most parts of my mind, I was. Yet, there was another feeling there too.

Something in my head reminded me that I wasn't going to be there alone and I wasn't simply going up to look around, like a visit to a graveyard. I was going to be there with Tom. The entire reason I was going was to try to help him find somewhere to live so he could stay in Pleasantville like he wanted. Somehow, these thoughts made it a little easier to deal with what I was going to do and the mere thought of spending any time with Tom outside of the diner made my day all the brighter.

When we got to the cabin later on that day, I could tell Tom was in love with it from the moment I watched him get out of his Jeep. While he walked around the place in awe, I tagged along, trying not to notice too many of the ghosts if held for me. Each spot next to the cabin and every room inside it were all full of memories from the time I was little and spent Christmas with my parents in the living room on up to just a few years before that day. I could tell, as we walked, that he tried not to linger too long in any of the rooms, but with his growing curiosity it was difficult.

When Tom had finished looking around the cabin, the look in his hazel eyes told me he was already thinking, planning what to do to fix the place up. He didn't need to say anything else. Without him asking, I offered once again to rent the place to him. This time, he accepted without much thought at all. Somehow I knew I didn't need to worry about him taking care of the cabin. It would be in good hands. Best of all, there was now no reason for Tom not to say in Pleasantville as long as he wanted.


	6. Chapter 6

Well, so… I this wasn't posted the next day, but here it is anyway. Again, I own only the plot and my OC Laura. I do not own My Bloody Valentine.

So… without further ado.

Chapter 6:

The Letdown

The fact that Tom Hannigar was staying in my folk's cabin didn't change much. I still saw him at the diner everyday I worked. We still had breakfast together and the conversation was still as casual as ever, like between two friends who were nothing more. It was like both of us had settled into a rut, like the people at the diner who were content to order the same thing and sit in the same place every day, free from the possibility of change or variation in the smallest way.

I wasn't quite sure what I had expected to happen, but I must have thought it would be a catalyst of some sort. But, for reasons unknown to me…and maybe even for Tom too, things weren't working out that way. There was one day, as I had gotten up from the table to go back to work when I had thought something was going to happen. I bent back down to get my plate and our eyes had met. Something was there in those hazel eyes in that moment, like he had so much to say but was holding everything in…and just that quickly, he looked away, muttered the words, "I'll see you tomorrow," and it was over.

After I had muttered my reply and got back up to the counter, I could tell by the look on Sandra's face she had noticed the exchange too. She stood eyeing me with wide eyes ready to pry every detail of the conversation out of me (not that there was much to tell). She didn't even wait for me to clock back in.

"So what happened?" Sandra interrogated as I passed her on my way to the register. I gave her an innocent look after I clocked back in.

"Nothing."

"Right…" she said, obviously convinced. "So what do you call what happened when you got up from the table?"

"Uh…Tom saying he'd see me tomorrow?" I answered.

"I call it a sex invite."

"That's not what happened and you know it."

"Well, it's what _would_ have happened if you both weren't taking your sweet time getting to the good part."

"Hey, I asked him to go swimming with us and he's living in my folks' old cabin…I'm trying the best I can," I sighed.

"Yeah…he just isn't responding…" Sandra stated in deep thought. "You think he's gay?"

"No!" I snapped. "Does he look gay to you?"

"Well, if the closet door is open, who am I to judge?"

"It's not that, Sandra," I argued, my voice a little lower than before. "Tom doesn't act like he isn't interested…he just acts…cautious."

"Maybe his last girlfriend beat him up?" she suggested sarcastically.

"Or just broke his heart…" I muttered quietly, more to myself than to her.

"You should try asking him out again," Sandra said after a few seconds of silence.

"I don't think so."

"Come on…one more time."

"No, Sandra," I argued stubbornly.

"You know that they say, the third time's a charm."

"I don't want to push my luck."

"What luck? You haven't even gotten lucky yet."

"I just don't want to push him, okay?"

"So don't push…just ask," she insisted. "If he's as shy as you say, he's probably waiting for you to ask him."

"I already have. He's blown me off twice."

"Look, Laura, just go up to the cabin and talk to him. If he says no, he's obviously gay or taken…or both. If you do it, I'll shut up about it."

I stopped and fixed Sandra with a serious look. "Can I get that in writing?"

She grinned a mischievous smile. "Sure, whatever."

"Sign it and shake on it."

"Fine."

"Fine."

After I had Sandra sign the back of a receipt and shake my hand, I began thinking about what I was going to do. Part of me was as confident as my big mouth co-worker that he did have feelings for me. That part of me just wanted to knock on his door and demand to know what his problem was. But the more cautious part of me wouldn't allow that. No matter what, I still wanted him as a friend…even if that was all there would ever be between us.

So on my next day off, I formulated a plan that I personally thought was a nice hybrid of the two feelings. I would drive up to the cabin-after all, I was his land lord in a way-and look over the place. Then, in what I deemed to be the opportune moment, I would casually bring something up…a movie, concert, something, and wait for him to react. Hopefully, in a more enthusiastic way than he had at the swimming invite.

But, like with most of the other plans I thought had a chance of working out for the good, things didn't quite work out the way I planned. When I got there, Tom wasn't in the house. I had gotten to the front and had started knocking when I heard something behind me.

"Hey, Laura."

The sound made me jump in the seconds it took me to recognize the voice and turn around.

"Hey, Tom," I replied, trying to disguise my jumpiness.

"I'm sorry I scared you. I was on the roof and I heard your car pulled up."

"It's okay. That's what I get for showing up unannounced."

"Hey, it's still your cabin."

"But you live her now. It looks great, by the way."

Thanks," Tom smiled. He had only been living in my folks' cabin for about a month and a half and I could already tell a big difference. The years of neglect were being erased little by little. He had an ability to bring out the best in a lot of things…rustic cabins and their owners included.

"So…uh…do you want to look around?" Tom asked.

"No, that's okay. I'll let you get back to fixing the roof." I took a deep breath, remember what I was there to do before I spoke again. "But…I did want to…ask you something."

"Oh? What is it?"

"Well, I was wondering…if maybe you wanted to do something…just the two of us…sometime."

"You…mean…like a date?" Tom asked, his hazel eyes flashing me an unreadable look. I again got the sneaking feeling in my gut that he wanted to say something he wouldn't allow himself to say.

"Date is a strong word…it wouldn't have to be like that…if you didn't want it to be…more like a friendly lunch out or something like that."

"Oh. I…don't know, Laura." It hurt way more than it should have to hear him reject me. After all, he had never really given me any indication he liked me all that much, just a set of things that could have easily been misread. Maybe it was that look in his eye…or maybe it was that I like him that much.

"Oh…okay. I'll see you later then." At that point, I knew when I wasn't wanted. I wanted nothing more than to get out of his sight and proceed to pretend like this visit had never happened. In all honesty, I wanted to jump off the face of the planet.

"Laura…wait. Hold on," Tom said once I had turned away from him. I faced him once again.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I just want you to know…I like you, but…"

"But, what?" By then, I was looking at him intently. I desperately wanted to know what the 'but' meant. He sighed.

"You shouldn't like me. You shouldn't even want to be around me."

"But I do like you, Tom…and I do want to spend time with you." I figured I should at least admit that much, if he was putting his cards on the table.

"It's dangerous to want to spend time with me. You'll end up getting hurt. I'll hurt you."

"I don't believe you'd hurt me, Tom."

"I don't want to hurt you, Laura," he said in a voice that made it impossible not to believe him. "But I'm not sure I could help it if I was around you."

"I don't understand," I admitted, pleading with him silently with my eyes to talk to me, to let me at least try to scale the wall he had put up around himself. However, I could tell he had already pulled the rope back up. There was no way in.

"I hope you never have to understand," he said, looking away from me. "I'm saying all this…for your own good. I do want you to understand that."

Not knowing what else to do, I nodded. "Okay. I guess I should go then. I'll see you tomorrow?" That was all I could say without breaking down into tears right there in front of him, which wasn't going to do any of us any good. Instead, I took in a sharp, deep breath and forced myself to hold it together.

"Yeah…I'll see you tomorrow."

With that, I turned and left the cabin. It was then, when I was sure no one wouldn't see, that I allowed a tear to escape down my cheek. The next day, I half expected Tom to not show up, but to my surprise, he did. I continued to sit at his table on my breaks and talk idly about the first topic that came to mind. Neither of us ever had the guts to bring up our conversation at the cabin. If I had been honest with myself, I was somewhat afraid to talk about it…scared of whatever truth Tom thought he was protecting me from. Most days when I was around him, I preferred to think it as a nightmare…a terrible dream that stuck out in my mind that I couldn't forget.


	7. Chapter 7

Hello, readers (if there you are still there). I just want to thank you all for your patience. I hope this chapter makes up for my lack of updating in a while.

I also need to remind you all I do not own My Bloody Valentine…

Chapter 7:

Death at the Diner

One Monday, a couple of weeks after my impromptu trip to the cabin, everything changed. I was scheduled to open the diner that morning, which was nothing new to me. I was up before the sun at 5am as usual. Thanks to a rare, nightmare-free sleep, I got my morning shower and was out the door right on time to be my normal, grouchy but punctual self. My old headlights flashed along the still sleeping town. Not a car or streetlight seemed out of place to me.

My old sable pulled into its usual spot at the diner. I could see the outline of Freddy's old truck in the back. I sighted inwardly when I remembered that it was just me and the boss until 8 when Sandra's sleepy self rolled in just in time for the morning rush. I mentally hoped to myself that the crowed didn't get too bad until then. I wasn't in any mood to deal with the usual _'I placed my order 15 minutes ago, where are my pancakes?' _drama.

I allowed the song playing on my car radio to finish before I took one last deep breath, bracing myself for the early morning winter cold before I finally got out of my car and made my way into the store. The door on the middle of the building was open as it always was, the one door the manger unlocked before opening to let the rest of the employees in. While practically every customer that would come through the doors in the hours to come knew perfectly well that the place didn't open until exactly 6:00am, there were still some old men in, town despite knowing this, for want of their morning coffee would try to get in early. Personally, I would have rather let them sit at the table rather than having to walk past their glaring headlights and feeling their eyes staring at us all greedily, but Freddy didn't see it that way.

Much to my surprise, I wasn't bombarded by Freddy's usual 'Good morning sunshine' or 'Just because you get here 15 minutes here early doesn't mean you can leave 15 minutes early' comments when I entered the diner. I also didn't get my usual nose full of frying bacon and sausage. The little voice in my head was beginning to sense something wasn't right. I turned around to face the register and the little window that peeped back into the kitchen. It was pitch black in that direction. Not even the heating lamp was on. My pulse momentarily started to rise.

For a second, I panicked until I remembered Freddy's truck outside. I had seen him leave in it the day before when our shift ended. He had to be in the store somewhere. I convinced myself that this was just one of my insane bosses attempts to scare me. At any moment, he would jump out from under the counter and yell 'boo' like a bored 5 year old trying to scare his little sister.

"Freddy!" I called out, also not in a mood to put up with his antics so early in the morning. "I saw your truck outside. I know you're here so your can stop screwing around!"

I finished my sentence and braced myself for the lights to 'mysteriously' turn on or Freddy to jump out and make himself known, but he didn't. I rolled my eyes and sighed. This was usually his favorite part, to hear ,me or Sandra scream like the girls we were and to laugh his ass off for the next several minutes. We usually had the looks on our faces reenacted for us for days on end.

After a few more minutes of waiting for him to make himself known, I began to get more annoyed than amused. I called his name again, but there was not the faintest sound of life anywhere else in the store. My pulse quickened again, but this time it didn't let up. The muscles in my legs and lower back also started to tense up. I wouldn't have to admitted it to anyone's face (if they had been there) but I was beginning to feel fear creeping slowly into the hairs on the back of my neck.

I took a deep breath and slowly counted to 60 in my head. When I had finished, Freddy still hadn't came out from whatever he was hiding. His idea of a practical joke was going way too far fast. Not to mention, the hair had not stopped standing on the back of my neck. I finally decided that the only way I was going to end this bad idea of a prank was to find him myself. Then, hopefully, the rest of the morning would go off without a hitch.

"Okay, Freddy, you win," I called out to the seemingly empty store as I started to slowly move toward the counter. "I'm coming to find you."

I forced my feet to the front counter next to the register. My eyes peered into the darkness to the window that allowed me to see into the kitchen. I expected to be able to see my boss's shadow menacingly through the divide, but I couldn't. Apparently, the game hadn't gone on long enough for him. If I wanted this to end, I was going to have to go farther in to the darkness that every bone in my body was wanting to avoid. I was going to have to go into the kitchen.

I opened the door to the kitchen and nearly jumped out of my clothes at the familiar creek of the door hinges. A second later when I realized what it was, I quietly laughed at myself. My morning was beginning to sound like a scene out of a horror movie. I made a new mental note to myself to stop to stop doing research for my dissertation in anything but broad daylight. Clearly, it was having an effect on me… jumping at sounds I had heard a thousand times.

When I got into the kitchen, I turned to the right toward the giant grill. Even in the dark, it gleamed a little silver off of its surface. I stared at it for a second and froze again. It was still clean. There wasn't any food or black on it all. Freddy could keep the grill clean when he cooked, but not that clean. I knew then that the grill hadn't been used since the night before. What had started out as playful panic had, by then, turned into sheer terror.

I remained quiet as I again demanded my feet to move. I didn't know where I was going. Subconsciously, my mind knew I was heading toward the back kitchen door that lead outside, but I didn't care to think about it. All I wanted to do was move away from the grill and the horrible realization that was becoming more and more inevitable by the minute… that I was the only one in the diner… or at least, the only one alive.

But I didn't make it out the door. Next to the freezer, a few quickened steps later, I finally found Freddy. He was lying on the ground half in and half out of the open freezer door. His body was face up and between his eyes there was a huge, bloody indentation, like something had been lodged there and pulled back out… something sharp, long, and wide… something like a pickaxe. I had seen enough of them to know the marks they left. Through my study of the Harmony miner, I even knew what they did to human flesh and this was it. The blood, the sight and smell of death were now no longer just things I would recognize from newspapers. It was there before my very eyes daring me to look at it.

I didn't stand at Freddy's body for long, but I knew I would never forget it. Faster than I had ever ran in my entire life, I ran out of the kitchen to the restrooms on the other side of the building. I pulled the door to the women's room open like it was a matter of life and death and continued to run into a stall. For reasons I couldn't explain, I took time to lock the stall before I finally fell to my knees, what I had been waiting to do the entire time. I crawled over to the white toilet and raised up slightly, the porcelain cold between my legs.

Unceremoniously, everything I had eaten over about the past 24 hours forced its way back up. Try as I might, I couldn't stop it. All I could do was gasp loudly for breath between courses. For a few seconds every time, I though I was going to suffocate before my lungs started to cooperate with me. It left an empty, dull pain in the pit of my stomach when it was over. There was nothing left to come back up… nothing else inside me yo give up in response to what I had just seen.

I wasn't sure what to do after that. For what seemed like a long time, I just sat in the restroom stall with my knees up at my face. The only sounds I could hear were my own deep breaths and the sound of a leaky faucet dripping water into a sink outside the stall. After a while, even those sounds began to feed my lingering paranoia. It brought questions in my minds that I had not thought of before through my panic. Who had killed Freddy? Where were they now? Would they come back and see my car outside and want to kill me for me what I had seen?

The urge to get out of the diner returned even stronger then it had been before. I had to get out of the store before something else happened, but my new paranoid questions wouldn't allow me to leave where I was. I couldn't go back into the lobby unarmed and alone with a potential axe murder in the kitchen. My legs were frozen in their place. I couldn't have moved if my life depended on it.

Suddenly, as my mind continued racing, I realized I didn't have to move. Until that moment, I had all but forgotten the cell phone in my pocket. My hand rushed to retrieve it from my pocket upon the realization. For a second, I just held the tiny, silver device in my hand, wondering what to do with it. In my head, I knew that the first number I should have dialed was 9-1-1 but for some reason, it wasn't. My fingers slowly unfroze and began scrolling down through my contacts list until it stopped at the first number that seemed to strike a cord in my mind at the time.

I shakily pushed the send button. It didn't occur to me that it was 6 in the morning. It didn't occur to me that normal human beings were asleep. It didn't occur to me that this person may not answer either because it was so early or the number seemed strange to them. Despite the odds, they did pick up the phone.

"Hello?" A sleepy sounding voice came on the line.

"Tom… its Laura," I responded, my voice shaking as much as my body. It was a wonder I had been able to speak at all.

"Laura? What's wrong… where are you?"

"I'm at the diner. Freddy's been murdered."

"What do you mean murdered?" Tom sounded confused, in a 'why are you calling me about this' kind of way.

"I… think it was him, Tom." It was only after the sentence left my mouth that I realized he probably had no idea the 'him' I was talking about. "I think it was Harry Warden that killed Freddy."

There was a long pause on both ends of the phone call. I didn't know whether I had thrown Tom into shock or if he was trying to find a way of telling me I was crazy.

"Is there anyone else in there with you?" He finally asked. The answer to my mental question had been my first thought.

"No, I haven't seen anyone else in here. There are some cars outside by now though."

"Okay… just stay where you are, Laura. Hide. Don't let anyone inside and call the cops, okay?"

"Okay," I agreed quietly. Part of me knew any sane person would have already done what Tom had said. I had always heard shock did crazy things to people… now I knew first hand that it did. "Okay… I will."

'Just hang on, okay?" He said again. I supposed my panic-stricken voice wasn't very comforting to him. "I'm on my way."


	8. Chapter 8

I have to sincerely apologize for leaving you all in suspense for so long. You guys are truly the best and most patient readers ever! So, I am going to skip the witty disclaimer, simply remind you that I do not own My Bloody Valentine and give you...

Chapter 8:

Exchange of Guilt

It was Tom that found me first, just short of rocking back and forth in my little hiding place. He finally coaxed me out of the bathroom stall after several minutes of reassuring words. Deep down somewhere in my mind, I knew the killer was long from the diner. If he hadn't been before everyone showed up, he certainly was by then. But my body continued to shake. The tiny tremors I couldn't stop were a constant reminder of Freddy, the blood on the freezer floor, and the look forever fixed on his face that showed more horror than I had ever seen in my life. I suddenly wondered if he had been able to see his face in the reflection of the glass eyeholes in the miner's mask… if he had watched himself die.

By the time Tom got me outside the building, I had gotten to the point where everything that had happened that morning felt like a dream, just like one of my nightmares caused by looking at gory pictures too close to the time I went to bed. I stared at the flashing blue and red lights of the police cars and ambulances wondering what would happen next. I had lived in Pleasantville all my life and had never heard of a murder in our quiet little town. Did our small police force even know how to investigate a murder? Would they call in help from a bigger nearby town that had dealt with these things before? Would they ever know who killed Freddy or, like me, would they automatically assume something like Harry Warden had found our town and intended to do to us what he had already done a few towns over in Harmony?

The sun began to rise. Blue, orange, and pink filled the sky that had been nearly pitched black before. Tom put his trench coat gently over my shoulders but he didn't say anything. I may had have read the textbook chapter on post-traumatic stress, but it was nothing like how I had imagined it in my head. I tried to imagine what I looked like to him and I knew it wasn't pretty. Even I could tell I wasn't handling the situation very well. The next voice I heard address me was Sheriff Midkiff. I knew him because he had been a close friend of my dad's. Nowadays, he was also a regular at the diner.

"Laura, we need you to come down to the station," he said in the most gentle voice he could manage. "We need to take an official statement."

I didn't respond for several seconds. I had heard what he said, but when I contemplated talking about what I had seen… saying it aloud, even tough I knew it was the thing to do from a psychological perspective, I wasn't sure if I could do it. However, when words finally did come as a response to the sheriff, they weren't from me.

"Don't you think that could wait a few hours, sheriff?" Tom asked. "I don't think she's ready to talk about it just yet."

"It's police procedure," he went on like he hadn't heard Tom at all. "It won't take long, I promise."

"I think procedure can wait… just a little while."

"We need to get the statement while the details are still fresh in your mind."

"Oh, I don't think it's something she'll forget anytime soon."

Sheriff Midkiff finally turned his attention to Tom. "Who are you?"

"I'm Tom Hannigar, the one who called the police. I'm a friend of Laura's."

"Well, why don't you run along now. You've done your part." His voice was getting more and more frustrated every time he spoke he spoke. "Let us take it from here."

"Look, sheriff, you've obviously never had anything like this happen in your town, but I've seen it before. Now, Laura, she just found a friend of hers dead in a freezer a few minutes ago. She's in shock and I think she'd appreciate a little time before you start playing 20 questions with her."

Sheriff Midkiff looked at Tom like he had just suggested letting someone get away with murder. I made sure they would keep arguing until they looked at me. Again, I tried to imagine what I must have looked like and couldn't up with a nicer visual image than I had before. Something about me must have struck a cord because after he looked at me, the sheriff nodded in defeat.

"Be down at the station at noon," he said slightly bitterly. "It that okay?"

"Yes sir," Tom agreed.

"And you'll make sure she gets there okay?"

"You bet?"

The sheriff walked away like a puppy who had just been scolded. I knew he had only been putting on such a show so that him and the rest of the force looked professional in front of all the media that was no doubt on their way. Being talked to by an outsider had hurt his ego, but I was sure Tom hadn't really cared about that. Once the sheriff had gone, he looked back down at me.

"Come on, Laura," he said quietly. "I'll drive you home.

We made our way quietly to his old jeep. He opened the door for me before getting in himself. I resisted the urge to jump when the hum of the ignition started. Once we pulled away from the diner, I spoke the first words I had spoken since calling him.

"Thank you, Tom," I said in a barely audible voice.

"No problem." He replied.

There was a long silence. As Pleasantville began to pass by in the window, I thought about the little town and how Freddy's death would no doubt change it forever. Less than an hour ago, a news crew would have passed by the place without a second thought. Now, I knew we would never live to see the last camera crew leave. Just like in Harmony, we would always be a place with a bloody history. The town had been nosy enough within itself, now everyone in the country would know our business.

Suddenly, with that thought, a realization hit me. I must have been thinking it the entire time, but at that moment it came to light in my mind. I looked at the town and then back at Tom, wondering if he was thinking the same thing I was. For some reason, what he thought seemed more important than the rest of the town. Finally, I had to know.

"It's my fault, isn't it?" I asked, my voice nearly as quiet as it was before.

"What?" Tom's voice sounded confused. "Why would you think that, Laura?"

"It's my fault if it's Harry Warden," I amended. "People told me to stop it, but I kept researching… kept digging into the murders when I shouldn't have. I found out things about what happened, some of it is probably supposed to have been classified If he knows what I know, it's me he's after."

"Look Laura, no matter who it is… no matter what you know, what happened is not your fault." He paused and sighed. "Especially if its Harry Warden."

Another realization hit me. I remembered something Tom said to Sheriff Midkiff that I had not had the mind to think of until that moment.

"Back at the diner, you said you've seen this kind of thing before." I reminded him. "What did you mean?"

"I'm the one that started it all," he answered in a distant voice.

"The one that started what?"

"I grew up in Harmony, Laura. My dad owned the mines where it all happened. Hannigar mines." Tom began. "When I got older, I went to work in those mines. God, I always hated it… so dark and after a while wearing those masks, you start to gasp for air even when you're above ground. I worked in the same tunnel as Harry Warden. He was my supervisor. He always hated me and to be honest, I never liked him much either. Anyway, one day I forgot to bleed the lines. I don't know how, but I did. A tunnel collapsed. It trapped Harry and a bunch of other miners in. being stuck down in that mine, that's what drove him crazy… that's what makes him kill people. It was me that did that. If he's after anyone in this town, its me. I'm the one who made him what he is."

The only one who made any noise after Tom finished talking was me. I sucked in a deep breath of air. Suddenly, a lot of things made sense. Tom felt responsible for all of the murders in Harmony. This was why he had randomly shown up in town. This was why he sat at the same spot away from everyone else at the diner every day. I didn't know for sure, but something told me it had spawned the conversation at the cabin as well. No wonder, with all of the guilt he took upon himself, he felt he had to protect everyone around him from the target he believed he had on his back.

"Tom, I'm sure it was an accident," I said in an attempt at being reassuring. "I'm sure no one blames you."

"You'd be surprised," he muttered.

"I don't blame you," I said. For a moment, his hazel eyes looked off of the road and at me, into my eyes.

"Thanks, Laura."

"Anytime."


	9. Chapter 9

I know, I know… one year later, right? I apologize to my fans, but I lost my muse for this fic for a long while… and then, I watched My Bloody Valentine (which I still don't own), Took one look at Jensen/Tom (whom I also don't own), and remembered this fic (which, parts of I do own) and felt terrible. So, to make it up to you I have two chapters to post. This is the first.

Chapter 9:

Arousing Suspicion

Not too much after (but made seemingly longer by the silence that followed our previous conversation), we reached my house. I expected Tom to have had enough of me and my PTSD for the day, but if he had it wasn't enough to make him leave. He even managed to force me to eat a few crackers and a small glass of ginger ale a few hours after we arrived. When the time came for me to go to the police station, I was again sure we would go our separate ways, but he insisted on driving me the short distance back into town. I tried to protest, but we could both tell my attempt was half-hearted. The truth was, I didn't want to go back to the diner so soon after what had happened and for unpsychologically sound reason, I felt more safe with him sitting next to me in the driver's seat of his jeep.

The police station was more full of squad cars than it had been in possibly its entire existence. Our local sheriffs, the ones from neighboring counties, as well as state police were all crammed into the parking lot that I had never seen occupied by more than five cars at a time in my whole life. Only a few hours had passed in the investigation and already outsiders were swooping in to relieve Pleasantville's finest. I had been right in assuming that our small town was vastly underequipped to handle anything like a murder investigation. With all of my research on Harry Warden, I could probably have told them a lot they didn't know and save them some time, but then I would have probably became a suspect and found myself wearing orange, which is something I had no immediate urge to try on. Plus, they would still have a murder on the loose. It was then that I realized I was going to be careful what I said if I didn't want to spend the night in lockup. I wouldn't lie, but I also wasn't going to say I may have accidently came across classified information in my dissertation research.

"Are you okay, Laura?" Tom's voice sounded off in the distance. He had noticed I was lost in my own little world of thought. "You don't have to do this now if you don't want to. I'll go talk to the sheriff again…"

"No," I protested. "I don't want to get you into any trouble. Besides, It'll be better if I just get it over with."

"You sure?" He fixed me with one of his gazes. I could feel the concern radiating from him and tried to tell myself it was just friendly concern… and nothing more.

"Yea, I am."

"Well, you have my number. Call me when you're done. I'll stay close."

"Okay. Thank you, Tom… for everything."

"Don't mention it."

I nodded and got out of the car. My feet led me into the station, which was just as crowded as the parking lot outside. Luckily for me, one of the officers saw me on my way through the door. I didn't know who he was, but seemed to know exactly who I was and why I was there. Just because more than our small town was going to be involved in the investigation wasn't enough to save me from being as 'Laura Blair, the one who found the body. The one who had been a little too interested in the murders in Harmony. The one who had brought the wrath of Harry Warden or some copycat psycho down on Pleasantville. Public enemy number one.'

The officer led me to a room in the back of the station. I was glad it was far enough away from everyone that I at least wouldn't be able to feel their suspicion and hostility the whole time. To my surprise, it wasn't Sheriff Midkiff waiting to talk to me. It wasn't state police either. The man was good old Harmony county sheriff's office. If I hadn't been the one about to be interrogated, I would have loved to have integrated him for my dissertation. The fact that he was here from Harmony and had enough pull to be the one to actually get into the questioning room with me added up to one thing in my mind: this man had investigated the murders before.

"Are you Laura Blair?" The sheriff asked, pulling me out of my awe.

"Yes sir," I replied, hoping a little respect would get me off on the right track.

"I'm Sheriff Axel Palmer. Please, have a seat."

I uttered a thanks before moving closer and obeying what he said. As I sat down, I took a good look at him before. He wasn't bad on the eyes, but not exactly my type. I could tell he worked out and had a serious relationship with hair gel. He didn't strike me as the kind of guy I would have immediately identified as a cop if I had seen him out of uniform. My guess was that the Palmer family tree had a long, gigantic branch of police officers and war veterans. It had probably never occurred to him to do anything else. He had made himself into what was expected in his small town family. I quietly wondered if that made certain things any easier…

"So, Ms. Blair, I just have a few routine questions. This shouldn't take too long. Just relax."

"Okay," I responded, letting out a deep breath in an attempt to calm myself down.

"How long have you lived here in Pleasentville?"

"Born and raised here, sheriff," I answered "I've been here all my life, except when I leave for school."

"Are you still in school?" He asked. Probably thing I looked way too old for a traditional college student.

"Not for much longer, "I'm just finishing my doctorate. My dissertation is nearly finished."

"So you're going to be a doctor?" came the typical, small town response I had come to expect over the years.

"Not exactly. My degree is in clinical Psychology."

"Oh. That sounds really… interesting," he added before dropping the subject and getting back on track of questioning. "How long had you known Fred Kingston?"

"I've known Freddy practically my whole life," I answered, still not used to talking about him in the past tense. "We went through grade school together. He took over the diner from his dad right after I got my job there."

"How long have you worked there?"

"About eight years, since I was an undergrad. You know, off and during holidays and summers."

"So you would know pretty much everyone that came through there?"

"Most everyone during dayshift. We get the occasional passer-by, but for the most part its just a bunch of regular customers that keep us going."

"Had anyone mew showed up in the days before today? Anything stick out in your mind, maybe a confrontation of some kind?"

"No, not that I can think of." By our standard, the days leading up to Freddy's death had been smooth sailing.

"What about someone moving into the area?"

I paused. People didn't move into Pleasantville very often. The only one to move here in years would be…

"As far as I know, no one has moved in here for months now."

"And who is the last person you remember moving in here?'

I knew once I said his name, the interrogation would be a downhill slope. He was the last person to move here, a regular at the diner, was living in a house I owned, and had been the one I called after I had found Freddy. Coupled with the idea he held himself responsible for what happened in Harmony, he would have his own explaining to do. I knew he was no killer, but would Sheriff Palmer?

"He's a man about your age."

"Do you know his name?"

I wanted to lie, but I knew I was horrible at it under pressure. When he found out, I knew it would be a one-way ticket behind bars. I would be even more a suspect. The last thing I needed was a criminal record. I had to tell him. After all, it wasn't like either of us had any dead bodies to hide…

"Tom Hanniger"

"What? What did you just say?"

"His name is Tom Hanniger."

"Where the fuck did you hear that name?" His voice exploded in my direction like I had just shot at him. He cast me a look as he wouldn't have minded shooting me. I had no idea where his reaction came from, but it succeeded in scaring me.

"That's his name."

"I blew up that psycho son of a bitch up in a mine shaft a year ago. He's dead. What are you, some axe slinging relative of his?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"First, a guy… your boss is found dead. Then, I find out you been studying the murders like some kind of sick science project. And now, you bring up a name that wasn't even released in the papers a year ago. Who the fuck are you?"

"What the hell are you doing in here, sheriff?" A voice came from the entrance to the room. It was another officer that neither of us had seen come in. I looked him, saw him cast a disapproving and authoritative glance at Sheriff Palmer, and couldn't help but feel relieved.

"This woman knows a hell of a lot more than she lets on." He stood up and pointed an accusatory finger at me. "I want to hold her as a witness."

I felt a surge of panic. Part of me wondered if I should save them the trouble, put my hands behind my back and wait for the cuffs, but I didn't. Instead, I looked at the other officer in the room and gave him my best please-don't-send-me-to-jail look.

"Sheriff, the security camera footage shows someone in a mining suit committing the crime. Now, whoever did it, they stood toe-to-toe with Fred and he was over six feet tall. I don't think Miss Blair saw or did anything."

"She is helping the one that did this! She's hiding something, I know she is!"

"Where's the proof? Because unless you can prove she had something to do with this, she's free to go."

Sheriff Palmer sighed in defeat. All three of us in the room knew he couldn't prove anything. I might have been the only who believed I was completely innocent, but I didn't care at the moment. I knew I hadn't intentionally caused Freddy's death. I also knew Tom hadn't either.

"Fine, let her go," the sheriff practically spat before giving me another deadly look. "But the next person that's connected to you that dies, I will lock you up. Count on it."

"Come on"

The other officer motioned me out of the room. I hurried past the door, trying to escape his words as fast as I could. Judging by my meeting with Sheriff Palmer, I could tell he was sure of three things: whoever killed Freddy was the same one that had killed the people in Harmony a year ago. By saying Tom's name, I had proven in his mind that I was connected to the deaths in Pleasantville (though I wasn't sure exactly how). And third, that the miner would kill again. What he didn't realize was how small a selection of targets he would have if he was going was right and he was going after the ones I was close to.


	10. Chapter 10

And here, lovely people of the MBV fandom, is the other chapter I promised… and where things start to get complicated (hopefully in a good, entertaining way).

Oh… and please laugh or choose to ignore the random Saw plug I added in the beginning. I figure Lionsgate would have fun with it if, by some miracle, someone important ever happened upon this and wanted to make it the actual sequel. It's not realistic, I know… but there are twists planned for down the road that would make it a good actual movie ;)

Chapter 10:

Suspicions Confirmed

"I want to play a game. Right now, you're feeling helpless…"

"Jesus, Sandra, turn that off," I groaned when I walked back into the living room with a bowl of popcorn in hand to see the movie she had put on.

"What? I thought you liked scary movies. We saw this one in theaters, remember?" my friend said, casting a strange look in my general direction.

"I usually don't mind them, but I think its kinda in bad taste to be watching gore a month after our boss was killed."

I didn't need to say anything else. Sandra cut the movie off just as 'Saw V' flashed on the T.V. screen. Then, she sighed and sat back on the couch. Bringing up Freddy was still a soft spot for both of us. I took a seat next to her now feeling like I had just single-handedly ruined our girl's night after it had been a week in the making. Sandra's daughter was at her dad's house and Danny was off with his friends. He hadn't wanted to leave her alone, but when I told him I'd spend the night, it had put his mind a little more at ease.

"I'm sorry" I muttered.

"It's cool. We can watch something else."

"No, I shouldn't have said anything. Now, I feel like a bitch."

"You're not a bitch, Laura." Sandra assured me. "Weird and a helpless virgin… but not a bitch."

"Thanks for that," I returned, allowing the sarcasm to flow freely into my voice.

"Anytime. But hey, you would have a right to be…"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I meant with your boyfriend leaving town."

"Sandra…"

With that, she had hit she had hit the other soft spot in my life. She knew Tom was gone, but she didn't know the whole story. She didn't know I had called him instead of the police the day I found Freddy's body, she didn't know he had driven me to the police station later that day, and she didn't know about Sheriff Palmer exploding in my face for saying his name during my questioning like it was as taboo as having no grits in a diner in the south or like saying 'Voldemort' in the world of Harry Potter. I had told no one but Tom about the last thing. I had written it off as another small town vendetta, something to do with everyone in Harmony blaming him. I had though he had a right to know.

Not even I fully understood what had happened next. Tom had driven me home from the police station. He had stayed at my place the rest of the say until I had taken a Dramamine and had fallen into some sort of sleep. After that, I had at least expected to hear from him but I hadn't. Even after a week, I hadn't heard hide or hair of him again. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I had driven up to the cabin to see if he was okay. But I hadn't found Tom. I had found a sheet of paper taped to the door with my name on it instead.

Dear Laura,

I hope you find this letter and I hope you hadn't worried too much about me until you do. I had to leave town for a while. An emergency came up and I have to take care of it. I don't know when I'll be able to come back to Pleasantville, but the cabin shouldn't leak anymore if you want to rent it to someone else. I'll understand. I'm sorry.

Tom

"I know, he wasn't your boyfriend" Sandra brought my attention back to the present.

"Nope," I said, trying desperately to hard to hide the emotion surround that fact.

"But you said he might come back right?"

"I told you I didn't know," I amended. "I'm not Tom's keeper."

"No. That would require sex to keep him coming around."

"Are we going to watch a movie and pig out or not?" I changed the subject, like I did every time the words 'Tom' or 'sex' or both came out of my friend's mouth.

"Sure. You go pick something," Sandra said as she got up off the couch. " I have to go tinkle."

"That's really mature, Sandra," I scoffed as she went up the stairs.

"It will be to you too when you start having sex and get a five-year-old."

I chuckled as I got up off of the couch and made my way over to the DVD player and Sandra's movie collection. Her collection wasn't as extensive as mine at home. Half of the shelves were full of Dora and Barney DVDs and I was half sure that the locked bottom shelf on her TV stand was full of porn. I thought about putting in Barbie's _The Princess and the Pauper_ in just to be a bitch, but I ultimately decided on _Shakespeare in Love_. It had been a Christmas gift from me, one that Sandra had initially turned up her nose at… but once she had seen Joseph Fiennes and the numerous sex scenes, she had thanked me.

I put in the DVD and went back to the couch to get comfortable, popping a few bites of popcorn into my mouth and admiring the montage of images on the menu screen of the film. Flashes of Joseph and Gwyneth wrapped in each other's arms…in bed together…along with shots of the Elizabethan theater. I looked at them in envy. No one ever judged Viola for not opening her petticoat to every man in London. We had come a long way from the days of courtship and wooing… if only Shakespeare could see us now…

My musing was suddenly interrupted by a strange sound coming from upstairs. I cast a glance at the stairs, skeptical at first.

"Sandra, you better not be doing what I think you're doing," I called loud enough for her to hear. Then, I paused waiting for some smart ass reply. To my surprise, it never came.

"Sandra, come on. Get back down here or I'm going to watch Will Shakespeare strip without you."

Again, I waited for a response, but nothing came. A surge of panic began making its way through my body. In that moment, I couldn't help but think of Freddy. My breath was now coming in deep gasps. My mind was racing with a thousand different scenarios.

The noise, an indistinct thump, came again from the same place. If this was a joke, it had gone too far. I forced myself off the couch and to the stairs. From the bottom, I could see a single light, coming from a room or something else. I started to go up, my eyes fixed on the light. All the while, trying to keep myself sane by thinking of all the curse words I was going to call Sandra if she jumped out at me.

"Sandra, this isn't funny. I'm coming up there and you better be-"

Every muscle inside my body froze. It wasn't real. I managed to blink. There it was. Still there. It was real. The mask… the black suit…the pick axe with red on its tip. Harry Warden.

The light from his helmet flashed in my direction. He had found me. I had the sick feeling like I was inside one of my nightmares. Why couldn't I wake up? Why wouldn't it stop? Why me?

The monster took a step toward me and suddenly I could think a little more clearly. There was a killer in the house. He had killed Sandra. He wanted to kill me now. I didn't have to give up and wait for death. I could run. This wasn't a nightmare. He took another step toward me.

I turned and started running down the stairs. I could feel the force of the swing he had taken at my back. I got down the stairs and had no idea what to do next. My cell phone was in the living room. I darted off in the direction I had come from, hearing Harry's footsteps, slow and sure following me. I reached the couch and reached for my phone. In that time, he raised his axe. The blow left a long gash along my arm. I screamed and gripped my phone.

From there, I needed to get out of the house. My objective and steps became focused on the door. I ran, but I could feel the distance between us closing. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it past the kitchen. I tried to think of outside. The sun, the moon, and the sky, holding onto the memories as if my life depended on it. I realized I may not live to see them again.

As I reached the kitchen with harry and his pickaxe in toe, a shattering sound filled my ears. I realized that we weren't the only ones in the room. Sheriff Palmer and more officers were already inside. They had shot at Harry. Whether or not they had hit him, he had bolted off in the other direction, more concerned with preserving his life than taking mine. I stopped and sighed in relief for a second as the realization I was going to live sank in, but it was short lived.

"Put your hands in the air!" One of the officers yelled.

"Get on the ground!" Came another seconds later.

In my shock, it didn't register to me a couple of officers had not followed Harry when he fled. Sheriff Palmer's threat of arresting me didn't occur to me. When the officers started coming toward me, guns in hand is when it hit me. I had been the one to find Freddy. I had been the one to study the murders and befriend Tom, the one that started it all. Now, I was alive in the place where another murder had taken place. This was strike three.

I slowly got to the ground, keeping my hands out the way I had seen them do on cops. Seconds later, I felt the hands of an officer on my back. One of my arms was around my back before I knew it. Then the other and, at last, the handcuffs. It wasn't as slow or as fluid as the crime shows made it out to be. They also neglected to mention how much the cuffs pinched or how the sound of them closing on your wrists sounds oddly like the sound of the world as you know it crashing down around you. It's only topped by the sound of the words:

"Laura Blair, you're under arrest."


	11. Chapter 11

Happy Valentine's Day readers! What better way to celebrate that with a new chapter? (Well, two hours to go here until the big day… but nonetheless)

Chapter 11: Cruelty of Fortune

The world looks a lot different from the back of a police car. What was once bright and twinkling looks even more impressive when it's the last time you may see them for a long while. The ride to jail is the shortest ride most people will ever take, mostly because we want it to last forever and never deal what comes next. Most movies and books make it out like what's going on when you get the handcuffs, but it didn't work quite that way for me. Maybe it was because I had just nearly been killed with a pickaxe or maybe it's that way for everyone. Either way, it was added to my list of lies people believe about the criminal justice system.

As the night wore on, my mental list grew. Most believe they can't arrest you without charging you with something. In fact, they can for up to 48 hours. The charges don't have to come until a court appearance. Being quiet and polite doesn't make things any easier. Booking is actually something like an eight step process and takes hours and is only made longer by the fact that you are not the only one wearing new jewelry behind your back. If it happens to be really busy, you get your first taste of bars by being thrown into the drunk tank in the dark until they're ready to deal with you. Once it is your turn, you get to play twenty questions, be fingerprinted, and have mug shots taken. When the realization hit me hit for me that what was going on was real (and that I was going to jail) was when I stepped into the orange jumpsuit. It was a color I was sure I hadn't worn in my entire life. To me, it symbolized life I knew it coming to a swift end.

After so much interaction with drunken people and police officers, I was almost glad to be in a cell. I spent the night curled up on the bed I was meant to sleep on. I was almost too afraid to touch it at first. I didn't speak or close my eyes the first time. No one noticed me at all, much less cared about the fact I was locked up for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. There was nothing but me and my thoughts until the next morning what I was addressed for the first time in hours.

"Ms. Blair, it's time for you to meet with your attorney and go to your hearing."

I looked in the direction of the voice and saw Sheriff Palmer. _Of course it would be_, I thought to myself. I knew he was the reason I was there. I knew he thought that I was hiding something. What I didn't know was where all of this was going. He opened the cell door and I stepped out and stood in front of him. I had the right to remain silent (and probably should have) but I figured I was at the bottom of the metaphorical hole anyway. There wasn't much left he could do to me.

"What exactly are you charging me with?" I asked, putting emphasis on the 'you' to show him that I wasn't as stupid as he may have guessed I was.

"Now, don't get too hasty. That's what the hearing is for. You'll find out soon enough. "

I looked away at a curious crack at the wall. I didn't want to acknowledge his existence… or the vast amount of metal he had in his hands. My trip outside the cell block was going to require the people of Pleasentville to be protected (as if I was the only dangerous thing in the town.) This reality meant humiliation for more. I was going to have to appear in court dressed and in chains like the criminal I wasn't.

"What do you want from me? You know I'm not the one wielding the pickaxe. You're wasting your time ruining my life with this shit." I pleaded while simultaneously trying not to cringe or loose what I had eaten in the past twenty-four hours as he put a chain around my waist. It didn't hurt, but he was staring to repulse me.

"I wouldn't way that," he retorted, now binding my wrists to the cuffs provided by the chain around me. "Do you still say Tom Hanniger is in town?"

He bent down in front of me. The last step, in case a belly chain wasn't enough to keep from me from trying to escape, there were also leg shackles. I had seen people confined like I was before, but I had never expected it to happen to me. It made me feel heavy, even claustrophobic. I had never wanted to move so badly in my life, but I knew I couldn't.

"Is all this necessary?" I asked.

"You're in the system now and this is the procedure for transporting." To show me he was in control, he tightened the shackles. "Why don't you answer the question? They get tighter."

"I don't have to say anything to you," I snapped. "But my lawyer is upstairs if you wanna ask again when we get there."

"Don't fuck with me!" He rose up from the ground and gave me look that would have done some damage if it had been some kind of weapon. "This is serious. People around you are dying."

"You think I don't know that?"

"Then stop protecting a psycho. Tell me is he's alive, where he is or I'll walk you into that courtroom and you'll be amazed what I can pull out of my ass to charge you with. You'll never see the outside of state prison again."

I looked him in the eye. I knew I had seriously underestimated the man I had met days before during my interrogation. This was bigger than me and the pile of dead bodies between Harmony and Pleasantville. This was about Tom. There was a deep-rooted hatred there that I didn't understand. I just had the unfortunate luck to get in the middle of.

As it stood, Tom had shown up in Pleasantville, been the first man to acknowledge my existence in a long while, fixed up my parent's cabin, and had driven out at 5:00 a.m. to collect me from a murder scene. Axel Palmer had showed up to upstage my local police, blew up at me during an interrogation, arrested me at the scene of my best friend's murder, and was threatening to keep me locked in a world of orange, bars, and shackles for the rest of my life To me, I didn't have to wonder who to trust. Besides, even if I had a complete meltdown and wanted to take his under-the-table deal, there was a problem: I didn't know where Tom was or where he had been for the past month.

"I'll take my chances," I responded at last. "You may be surprised what a good lawyer can do."

"Suit yourself." He said as he started walking me out of the cell block. "I'd get used to this if were you."

For the second time, the sheriff of Harmony proved as good as his word. Not only did he manage to bring a felony charge of aiding and abetting against me, he succeeded in getting my bail set at an egregious amount. For such an incompetent officer at police work, he was certainly good at persuading a judge to see thing his way. I watched him while he spoke, wondering if I was the first innocent person he had managed to make look like a criminal or if I was just a bump on a long, crocked road of dishonest police work on his part.

When the gavel pounded, Sheriff Palmer left clearly satisfied with the damage he had done. I left in the same jumpsuit and shackles I had come in, publically humiliated with the promise of spending the next two weeks in a living hell. Of course, because I didn't have thousands of dollars or anyone with it to spare on me, I wasn't going anywhere farther than a new cell. I was moved to a new area to coincide with my new title under the criminal justice system: officially charged with a felony and awaiting arraignment. It didn't look much different from where I had spent the night. Then again, all of the bars I had seen over the past 24 hours were staring to run together. This place had only one difference: a cellmate.

When the bars closed on me again, it was with another woman. She looked older than me and almost twice my size. In a fight, she would break me in half like a stick. I glanced at her, momentarily in what I hoped was a non-threatening way. Although I hadn't exactly exercised my right to remain silent earlier, I planned to then. I hoped if I ignored her, she would do the same and not exercise her right to crush me. To me, it seemed like a good plan. However, luck had not exactly favored me in the past 24 hours. I realized quickly that I had managed to get possibly the only chatty cellmate in Pleasantville's lockup.

"You're the one fucking Harry Wardern, aren't you?" My new roommate asked curiosity rather than disgust in her tone.

"Something like that," I said, hoping it was the right response (or, at least, one that wouldn't get me killed.)

"I fuck a guy that had killed another guy once," she interjected. "Best lay I ever had."

I nodded and stayed silent. In my head, I mentally congratulated myself for making it through my first cellmate interaction alive and without being reduced to a puddle of blood. The thought that I was stuck in there for the next 13 days until my arraignment made me sick to my stomach. Not only was I stick in jail behind metal bars for something that I had nothing to do with, but I was stick there with someone else. Even if I was innocent I had only been locked up one night and I was beginning to see how it drove people insane.

Late that afternoon as the sun began to set, the events of the previous day started to sink deeper into my consciousness. My best friend had died. I had seen and been attacked by Harry Warden. A police officer with a vendetta against the only person I had found to relate to in the entire town had single-handedly deprived me of my future career, my reputation, and my freedom. The only evidence I had that any of it was real was the feeling that I had been punched in the gut and the gash on my arm Harry had left. For a second, when the realizations became too much, I turned toward the cell wall pretending to be interested in the bottom bunk and allowed a few betraying tears to creep down my cheeks.

As I slowly regained control of myself, wiping my face, I noticed the sound of hurried footsteps approaching the cellblock. Taking the opportunity to distract myself, I turned back around to see what was happening. The man running, a dark skinned officer came into view seconds before something lunged into his chest from behind. Out of his uniform, something silver and pointed appeared like the blade of a long knife… or a pickaxe. When the silver retracted, he fell harshly to the ground onto the unforgiving concrete of the cellblock floor. For a moment, I tried to delude myself into hoping it was an escaped inmate, someone on another block snapped.

But my powers of persuasion over myself were no match for my eyes as Harry Warden rounded the corner. He was there, in a hallway full of people in cages. We had nowhere to hide or way to protect ourselves, although I got the nauseating feeling he was only after me. There was utter chaos in the block as everyone saw him. There were so many voices shouting and screaming around me that I couldn't distinguish a single one from the others. I honestly wasn't sure if I was screaming or not, but my body locked itself where it stood. There was nowhere to move, nothing to do. I was a victim confined in a tiny, barred space. To him, I must have looked like the easiest kill he had ever come across.

Easy… but not easy enough to satisfy my cellmate. She grabbed me by my arms (which wasn't difficult as off guard as I was.) I tried to struggle when I get her hands on me, to struggle, to scratch and kick, but it was all futile against her. She was twice my size and motivated by her sense of self-preservation. I was an ant in her sight and an acceptable payment for her own life.

"Let me go!" I yelled as I again dug my fingernails into whatever I could reach from behind her grasp on me.

"Hey, you son of a bitch!" she called to Harry as she slung me hard against the bars, holding me there with the entire force of her sturdy, much heavier body. One of her hands reached and pulled my face upwards by my hair. I looked into the glass eyeholes in his mask when he finally looked in our direction. "I've got your bitch right here!"

"No! Let go of me. You don't understand!" I pleased loudly.

"I don't give a fuck!" she made clear. "Take her, killer, whatever, just leave me the fuck alone."

She smashed my face up against the bars by the grip she had on my hair. By then, I knew it was pointless to try and reason with her. She was too deep into her delusion of fear. I turned my attention to the eyeholes, the closest I could come to seeing Harry. For a split second, I thought I could see the hazel of the man's irises.

"Please…" I begged. "Please don't. Please don't do this. You're not in the mine anymore. You don't have to hurt anyone anymore."

But my pleas had no effect on Harry either. He raised his axe to deliver a blow, but I remained focused on the glass.

"Harry Please!" I yelled, my voice raving desperately. "What happened to you was an accident. No one meant for it to happen. I know Tom… I've talked to him. He's sorry… he didn't mean to…."

For a moment, the pickaxe remained suspended in midair. In that instant, I dared to think I had said something, some magic word some combination that had gotten through to him. But my delusion came crashing down as the silver, glistening and splashed with red, began is decent. The force holding my body in place didn't let up. This was it. I was going to die. The last thing I would ever was my face reflected and distorted in the eyehole of the mask before everything faded into the everlasting black that would make up the rest of forever.


	12. Chapter 12

Hello readers! Yes, I am on a roll. I hope this chapter makes up for the sadness and the panic-attack inducing chapters.

I also want to thank everyone for their reviews and encouragement! You are all great!

So… I give you…

Chapter 12:

Reunion of Trust

The next thing I became aware of was an unyielding pain, pounding in the back of my head. Though it made it hard to think, it meant I was still alive. I had no idea how I was still breathing. I remembered Harry Warden and watching the axe come down in a sure downward direction with an intense, dram-like quality. After that, there was nothing else in my memory but the black. I had no idea how long I had been unconscious or where I was, only that I had apparently survived another attempt on my life.

I opened my eyes, but it did no good in answering where I was. All I could gather was it wasn't the cell I had been in before. There was white in every direction I looked. I guessed I was in the jail's equivalent of a hospital, though part of me thought it looked (and smelled) too clean to belong to the system. I was lying in bad covered in plain, white sheets in a room with all whit walls. The effect was almost blinding, especially since I wasn't sure how long my eyes had been closed. The smell of sanitizer was in the air, which did not help the pain in my head and the only thing within earshot was the hum of an air condition. As little stimulation as there was in the room, it was still enough to make my head spin.

To keep from sailing the clean sheet I was wrapped in, I shut my eyes again not long after I opened them. The darkness welcomed me back an old friend. The sick feeling subsided and it was much easier to think without the bombardment of whit around me. I tried to focus on the sound of my breathing, becoming more and more level. Everything else could wait. I listened to each breath closely until I slipped back into the darkness where there was nothing.

Some time later, I felt the sensation of something warm pressing against my lips. The reaction my body generated was almost too much for my mind to process so quickly from unconsciousness. My eyes shot open. My body tried to jolt forward. My ears heard the sound of a familiar voice.

"Easy, Laura… it's me… it's Tom."

As quickly as I opened my eyes, there he was standing over me. A slowly awakening part of my mind knew I should have been suspicious, asked a thousand questions. I should have, but I didn't All I could bring myself to feel was glad to see him. In that moment, the fact that it was probably dangerous to both of us didn't matter as long as he was there.

"Tom…" I muttered after a few seconds of looking blank.

"Yea. Do you remember what happened?"

"That last thing I remember before I woke up here… I was in jail and Harry Warden was there." I pulsed, suddenly thinking about my cellmate, the one who had thought giving me over to him would save her. I remembered the downward motion of the axe before I became unconscious. I knew I was alive. "The woman that was in there with me is she-"

Tom looked at me with the gaze of someone who really wanted to lie but couldn't. Somewhere beyond the haze of my pounding head, I knew the answer. He didn't need to say it, but after a moment anyway. "She's gone, Laura. The end of the pickaxe hit your head when it came down. You've been in the hospital a couple of days now."

Even though I didn't know the woman with me in the cell and she and she had tried to get me killed, I couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty for her death. The pile of bodies was adding up around me quickly. First Freddy, then Sandra… and then a woman who just had had the bad luck to be stuck in a jail cell with me. I suddenly wondered if it was safe for Tom to be there… or if he was even allowed to be there. What had he have risked to see me? Though I was happy he was in the room, I didn't want him to be the next on my pile.

"Why aren't I… being guarded or something?"

"Your bail's been paid. This is just a hospital."

With the first words, I raised up in my bed. My face contorted in confusion. Had I missed something overlooked a rich friend or relatives… or old guy from the diner? "What?"

"Yea," he said nonchalantly, the smile on his face that had made me nearly spill coffee a thousand times at the dinner (and actually spilled a couple of times.) "Your… Aunt Teresa paid the courts off just before you were attacked."

I sighed. Throughout my entire childhood, I wanted brothers and sisters, someone to play Barbies with, gush over boy bands with, and to be the one I called when I want all the way. My parent's justification for keeping me an only child had always been the same: both of them had grown up only children. There was no Aunt Teresa… but there was a Tom Hanniger. I looked at him incredulously.

"Tom, you shouldn't have done that."

"Yes, I should have," he persisted. "I'm the reason this is happening. You would have never been in there if it wasn't for me."

"Axel Palmer may have had something to do with it too," I said in an effort to ease the guilt I knew he had to be feeling, enough to shovel out ridicules amounts of money.

"Axel's more dangerous than you think, Laura," Tom looked right into my eyes. He spoke like the words he spoke were the most important ones he would ever utter. "I know I haven't been open with you, that I've shut you out every time you tried to get close to me, and I know that I should have been here to protect you. No matter how hard I tried not to fuck things up for you, I have. You don't have any reason to believe me when I say it, but I really was trying to keep you safe."

I met his gaze. Though in a way he had a point when he said I didn't have a reason to believe him, I didn't see it that way. He hadn't exactly been open, but I wasn't exactly willing to reveal deep, reality skewing secrets on command either. He had shut me out, but I had been forward, trying to scale the wall around him without even a footing. And yes, he had left in the midst of the world as I knew it tumbling down, but he was with me now. There weren't many people who would do what he had done for me and even fewer above ground. If I had wanted to, I could have told Axel where he had been living, gave him the note he had left there for me, and let him use his pool to hunt him down. I could have, but I didn't… and, especially in that moment, I didn't regret it.

"I do believe you, Tom," I said without the slightest hesitation in his voice.

"You do?" Despite my lack of conflict, he still seemed surprised.

"Yea, I do."

"Then will you come with me?" He sighed like he had just something he knew was crazy. I continued to look into his eyes not saying anything. "You're out of jail, but you can't stay in Pleasantville until you have to go back to court. He's still out there and he's after both of us."

"It's bail jumping to leave town like that," I reminded him thoughtfully.

"I know," he said. "And I know it's crazy and I know you've already lost so much because of me-"

"But," I interrupted. "There won't be a trial if I die… or anything else to loose. So let's go."

I wasn't sure which one of us was more surprised by my response. By far, it was one of the most impulsive things I had ever agreed to do (at least since college.) I knew it would actually make me guilty of a crime, not to mention make me look guilty of the crime I was accused of. Tom seemed as if the last thing he had expected me to do was agree. Yet, I could tell he was relieved I had.

"You don't have to say yes, you know. I could stay here with you-"

"No, I want to," I protested. "You're right. We can't stay here and be sitting ducks."

"Okay," he nodded. "Can you get up?

It was a good question, one that was vital to the plan of leving. I don't know whether or not I could stand, but I hadn't tried. Very slowly, I tried to wake up the muscles in my legs, wiggling my toes and working my way upward. A few minutes later, I moved my torso to the edge of the bed. I let my feet linger on the ground for a few seconds before finally getting up and putting weight on them. As I did, Tom put his hand gently on my arm to catch me in case I fell. Our eyes met in that instant. I didn't remember us touching (except by accident once when we had both reached of a packet of coffee creamer at the same time while eating breakfast at the dinner.)

It was in that small span of time that I realized I was probably standing up with him at my side in a hospital gown. Likely the kind that was more revealing in the back than the dressed extremely confident, thin girls wear to prom. I mentally cursed, feeling the heat rushing to my face. Then, I cursed myself again for blushing like a five-year-old when she held hands with a boy. People (men even) had seen me in a lot less. A few days ago, I had been stripped searched as part of being booked when I was arrested. Yet, there was still something about Tom and hazel eyes that never ceased to make me feel self-conscious. I even tried to imagine what my hair must have looked like.

"Oh. Your clothes you were wearing are right here," he said, suddenly knowing the reason for my embarrassment and handing me the bag that held my clothes.

"Thanks," I blurted quickly. "I'll just-er go change."

I took the bag from him and, still unsure of my legs, made a beeline for the bathroom. He didn't protest, but took his hand from mine and let me go. I nearly lost it a couple of times, trying to go too fast, but made it to the room and closed the door behind me. Tom probably thought I was crazy. I quietly groaned in frustration with myself. How was I going to go anywhere with him if I freaked out every time he touched my like a tween at a Justin Bieber concert? (Minus the screaming, but the feeling was still there.) I shook my head on focused on the task at hand.

The hospital gown came off over my head fairly easily. Then, after carefully maneuvering, I got my jeans on, followed by my green tank top. The next thing I saw in the bag was the ripped, blood arm of my button-up shirt. I shivered involuntarily as the memory of that night looked me in the face. Try as I might, I couldn't get passed it enough to put the shirt back on. I threw it to the side and maneuvered my socks and boots on. Leaving the bloodstained item behind, I exited the room and went back to where Tom was waiting. Our eyes met again. I had no idea if I was just more sensitive to it because of the bump I had taken to my head… or if it was something else.

"Guess we should get going," I said, trying to sound casual.

"Yea," he agreed. "But it's pretty cold outside. Here, put this on." The brown jacket he had on over his green hoodie was off and over my shoulders before I could protest. I uttered a thanks as I slid my arms into the holes. The warmth felt good against my arms, but I started walking as soon as I noticed it for fear I would do something stupid (like blush) again. I didn't want to give myself the chance to look like an ass again… and I was glad to be going somewhere without being guarded (at least, guarded by someone I minded being close to me.)


End file.
